Back to the Start
by ARPfics
Summary: It's Artie birthday and he makes a simple wish to get Tina back. Instead, he finds a time-traveling wheelchair and learns a bit more about the past, the future and himself.


"Happy freaking birthday," Puck laughed as he came up to me, throwing a sweatshirt in my face. I'd been headed towards the cafeteria to get some lunch.

I stopped and pulled the grey hoodie off my face and started untangling it. "What is this? How'd you even know it was my birthday?"

"Facebook, duh. For somebody so smart, you sure are dense."

"Hey," I glanced down and looked at the design. It was a plain black CBGB's zip up. I looked up at Puck with a smile. "Cool."

He smirked. "Don't say I never did anything for you. I mean, I got it from my uncle in New York when I was like 12 and it doesn't fit me, but still."

"Still," I nodded, agreeing rapidly. "Thanks, Puck."

"You're alright, Artie," he smiled. "Let me take you for pizza. I still owe you for Breadstix anyway."

I pulled on my new hoodie excitedly, over the green sweatervest I was wearing. I looked up at Puck slowly, my eyes narrowing. "Is this a trick?"

Puck just laughed. "We're cool now, Artie, remember? I owe you for helping me out with math and stuff. Anyway, Rachel saw me with the sweatshirt and got the whole story out of me. She seems to think it's a good idea. Finn and her are gonna meet us there."

"Now? We're gonna miss math."

"Yeah, come on. Live a little." Puck ushered me on, starting towards the front door of the school. I rolled after him, surprised at this version of Puck that was actually nice. And since when did he listen to Rachel, of all people? It really made no sense. I was kind of scared Puck was leading me right into a trap, but I kept right on following him.

The pizza joint was right in the plaza next to school, so we just walked, Puck a few steps in front of me. True to his word, Rachel and Finn were waiting for us at a table. Finn gave me a big goofy wave and Rachel just shook her head and smiled widely. I waited while Finn pulled aside a chair for me and I rolled under the table and set my break. Suddenly, I looked around, "Hey, where's Puck?" Maybe this was a trick...

"He's over there," Finn nodded over at the counter. Puck was paying and the young guy behind the counter handed him a steaming pie of pizza.

"Guys, we've really got to start thinking about Sectionals..."

Finn and I both turned to Rachel at the same time. "Really, Rachel," Finn rolled his eyes. "This is no time to be talking about glee club."

Rachel just smiled, her broad innocent smile and looked up in Puck's direction. To my surprise, she started singing, "happy birthday, happy birthday."

I looked up at Puck, who was carrying the pizza, which now had flaming birthday candles sticking out all over it. That didn't seem so safe... and only Puck would even think of something like that. I had to smile as he set it in front of me. "Make a wish, Wheels," he chuckled.

I looked around the table, at the two popular jocks. I never thought I'd be hanging out with either of them, that I'd actually be popular. But my girlfriend at the moment wasn't even here. I liked Brittany a lot, at least I thought I did. She never put up a fight and she was really sweet. Plus, she was hot. Who was I kidding, I knew it wouldn't last long. Brittany and I just weren't right for each other. We didn't fit... What I really wanted, I thought, staring at the flaming pizza, was something I'd completely messed up... I wanted Tina back.

I blew out the candles, seriously doubting my wish would ever come true. "Dig in, guys," I laughed, kinda trying to blow off my own tension. I took a slice and ate it quickly; I guess I was hungrier than I thought. Rachel only took like one slice, but between Finn and Puck, we finished off the pie pretty quickly. "Well, this has been great and all, but we should probably head back, you guys. Next period is in like 5 minutes."

The guys nodded, stood up and headed towards the door. Rachel took Finn's hand with a smile and I couldn't help notice Puck just rolling his eyes. We all went out into the parking lot and started heading back towards the school. Suddenly, Rachel veered off towards one of the stores. "Hey guys, let's just go in the Salvation Army for two seconds? I've seen some pretty good props for Sectionals in there."

Finn just shrugged at Puck and I. We all knew there was no way we could stop Rachel once she got the idea in her head. Besides, Rachel would never be late for class, so there was really nothing to worry about. An old fashioned bell rang over the door as we entered the store. Rachel took Finn straight towards the back of the store and Puck studied a table of junk near the front. I stayed close to him; it was really too crowded for me to explore much. "Hey, look over there, wheels," Puck laughed, glancing next to the table.

I followed his gaze to a clunky metal wheelchair. It must have been twice as big and heavy as mine and looked incredibly impractical. I wondered why it was just sitting there. "I dare you to try it out," Puck snorted.

I looked up at him and considered this. The chair probably wouldn't even get very far, but it wasn't like I was gonna go anywhere in it. I laughed lightly and shrugged. I wheeled over to the old wheelchair and quickly transferred myself over to it. "Well, take my picture," I laughed, looking up at Puck again.

Only this time, he wasn't there.

I looked around the store quickly; it was empty. The spot where my wheelchair had been parked was empty, the whole store seemed abandoned. I skimmed my hand over one of the wheels nervously. The old wheelchair didn't even have breaks, I realized almost unconsciously. I pushed forward a bit hesitantly. At least it moved a lot easier than I thought it would. I wheeled towards the door, wondering if maybe Puck had gone out without me. "Hey, kid," an unfamiliar voice yelled at me as I pushed through the door.

I looked up to see the old guy at the counter glaring down at me. "Where do you think you're going with that wheelchair? It's not for sale and-"

I cut him off, "Can I just borrow it for a bit?"

His eyes softened slightly. "you're that Abrams kid, aren't you?" I just nodded; it seemed almost everybody in town knew about me. "Yeah, take it as long as you need." He smiled, his lips quivering nervously.

I shook off his bad reaction and went out into the parking lot. Where was Puck? I looked around nervously. Maybe this was a trick after all, but that didn't seem right either. Rachel would never leave... she knew what it felt like to be picked on. Finn might leave if he was alone with Puck, but Rachel would never. It really didn't make any sense.

I started towards school and could just hear the bell ring for the next period. Well, I was gonna be late after all. I sighed and pushed on the wheels as hard as I could. The chair was really a piece of shit; it barely had any give and it was twice as hard as usual to get where I wanted. I entered the school just as the late bell was ringing. A few kids were slipping into their classrooms at the last second. The ones that noticed me gave me a second look, but no one seemed too phased. I started heading towards Math, hoping Puck would be there to offer some explanation.

Suddenly, Kurt turned the corner towards me. What was he even doing back at McKinley? Shouldn't he be in that boys' school across state? "Oh, great Artie. Come walk with me to English. You're the perfect excuse as to why we're late."

"What are you talking about?" I knotted an eyebrow at him, ignoring his vaguely offensive implications for the moment. "I don't even have English with you."

"Oh come off it," he laughed and his eyes took on a nervous tinge that I hadn't seen on him in a long time. He'd gotten a lot more confident in himself lately, even if his life wasn't easy. "Let's just walk in together. It doesn't matter what I was doing in the boys' locker room or who I was staring at."

What? Who had he been watching? He'd had his eye on Sam for a while, but that was before the blond had gotten involved with Quinn and Kurt's chances had been curbed. Anyway, he had that guy from Dalton now. I shook my head and tried not to think about that. We really didn't need another person falling for the enemy, but Blaine seemed to actually be helping Kurt out for the time being. I didn't know what his situation was; I didn't really wanna get involved. I had my own problems. Like finding my wheelchair.

I cleared my head and pushed off after Kurt. Today had definitely been odd, but I figured it was better just to go with it at this point. He held open the door for me and I carefully pushed through it. To my surprise, our whole English class from last year was already inside, diligently taking notes. They looked briefly, but quickly lost interest once we took our seats. It looked like we were right in the middle of Fahrenheit 451, which I remembered actually really liking last year.

What in the world was going on?

I kind of just stared at the board the whole period, trying to figure out what was going on. Thankfully, English was last period and we had glee today, so I took off towards the choir room at top speed. I had to find Puck... It was annoying because the stupid wheelchair wasn't doing what I wanted it to do, but I did manage to make it to our practice room before anybody else. "Oh hey, Artie," Mr. Schue smiled at me as I entered. "I have something of yours in my office."

I nodded, figuring he was gonna give me back my Spanish test or something. I rolled over to his office and found it crowded with a bunch of wheelchairs. The heck? These looked like the wheelchairs we had used for Proud Mary. We'd eventually donated them back to the church Mr. Schue had bought them from, but I remembered they'd sat in Mr. Schue's office for weeks. Kind of how they were now.

I noticed my distinctive red chair among the others and sighed. I was actually glad to see it; the old wheelchair I was borrowing just gave me trouble than it was worth. I quickly transferred to my trusty ride and pulled back out into the choir room. Now the room was full of my friends, but I found myself blinking in shock. Sure, a few little things were different, like Tina was dressed differently and Matt was back. Wait, why was Matt here? Anyway, my gaze was drawn immediately to Quinn... She was pregnant.

Rachel happened to be sitting next to my customary spot and as I pulled up, I glared at her. "What the hell is going on? What's the date?"

"Oh, I saw on facebook it was your birthday," she smiled condescendingly. "Happy birthday. I think everybody just got distracted, what with Quinn's baby and all." She got a horribly sad and jealous look in her eyes, almost like what she would have looked like a year ago... and suddenly, it all made sense. Somehow, it was last year! 2009!

"Seriously, what's the date?" I asked again seriously.

"November 25, 2009. Why do you care so much?"

I could feel the blood draining from my face. It must have happened when I'd transferred to the old wheelchair in the first place. What a mistake! Somehow I'd been transported exactly one year back in time, but why? What was so special-

"We have a very special performance today," Mr. Schue interrupted my thoughts. "Let's all go to the auditorium and give it up for Tina's big solo."

Before I could even process what was happening, I'd changed into a simple orange tee shirt and I was on stage, watching in disbelief as Tina sang True Colors. I stared at her in awe. I hadn't even realized what she was really singing about the first time. I think I was distracted by the love pentagon that was going on, how everybody seemed to be in love with the wrong person, but Tina only had eyes for one person on that stage... me.

How could I have ever been so stupid?

I sat backstage for a while after rehearsal, just trying to absorb what was going on. I didn't know how long I was gonna be here, so I just had to do something so that Tina never dumped me. I sighed; I'd been pretty senseless to her. Maybe Mike was better for her; he seemed to care about her a lot. Anyway, I had Brittany. For now...

Well, I knew one thing for sure, I wasn't gonna hang around in 2009 for longer than necessary. I'd already lived through Sophomore year once and that was more than enough. Simple physics told me that if I wanted to get back was get back into that wheelchair and that seemed easy enough. First thing was first. I had to find Tina and set things straight... somehow.

Slowly, I realized I wasn't alone in the auditorium. There was a soft noise coming from the stage, almost like somebody was crying. I peaked around the curtain and sure enough, it was Tina. The first time around, I had been avoiding Tina and so I'd just left practice without really thinking about her. Why would she be crying? Where was Mike to comfort her?

Oh, that's right. To my knowledge, she'd never even spoken to Mike yet. Tina had told me that the few hours she'd been paired with Mike as a ballad partner, they had sort of just stared at each other and talked about dim sum. I shrugged and decided hell with it. I rolled up to her, "Tina?"

She looked up and sucked in a breath loudly. She ducked her head and tried to hide her tears. Her eyes wouldn't quite meet mine. Whoa, I'd forgotten just how much she had changed in the last year. Now she seemed more confident, more fierce and ready to jump on an opportunity. Just last year, she'd been shy, reserved and barely able to perform her favorite song in front of her best friends. She'd been faking a stutter.

And I'd completely rejected her out of hand. Crap, was I still supposed to be mad at her about that? I couldn't remember and it didn't seem to matter now. "I thought everybody had left," she whimpered, looking around at the empty stage.

I rolled up to her carefully. "Tee-"

"Look, I never should have started anything between us. I said I'm sorry and let's leave it at that, OK?"

"Tina," I took her hand softly. "Stop blaming yourself. I was kind of a jerk to you."

She grabbed her hand away and looked up into my eyes for the first time. Her deep brown eyes actually shocked me a bit. I hadn't really noticed her for too long. "What are you talking about? You're the last person I would blame. I was lying to you."

I sighed almost unconciously. "That's all in the past. I realized that none of that really matters." It was just such a long time ago; I wondered why it ever bothered me so much. We had only been friends for about 2 months at that point. Sure I had trusted her, but I realized now I was the only person she'd ever entrusted with the secret. Everybody else had just sort of blown it off, because honestly, there were bigger things to worry about. Everybody seemed to be keeping their own secrets.

Anyway, maybe I trusted people too easily. I had trusted Brittany after all and that was pretty stupid in retrospect. Maybe I never should have trusted Tina. It would have been a whole lot less to lose.

Tina narrowed her eyes. "That's not what you said last week. You seem different today, Artie. I saw you earlier in that old wheelchair. What's going on?"

I sighed. Could I tell her the truth? She'd probably think I was crazy... I looked into her eyes, and I lied. "The whole wheelchair thing really got me thinking. I realized I have it a lot better than other people. A lot of people don't even have good wheelchairs to get around in, so I'm staging a protest. A wheelchair protest."

"That's amazing, Artie," her smile brightened and she got that wide look in her eyes that she used to have a lot around me. I'd never really noticed it before, but Tina used to really like me. She looked at me not out of pity or even sympathy, but awe. Now in days, I saw her looking at Mike like that a lot, even though I tried to ignore them. I had a new girlfriend now, I reminded myself. I didn't need Tina's concern.

Only now, back in 2009, she really did care about me. Even though I'd rejected her, even though I would act like a jerk to her a million times, she stayed by my side until she went off to Asian camp. All she ever wanted was to help me out, I realized... and I blew it. She stood now, smiling through the traces of her tears. "So let's get you back in that old wheelchair."

Much to my surprise, she grabbed hold of the handles on my chair and started steering me back to the choir room. "Wait, Tina," I said, but I completely lost my train of thought. It was so much like old times; Tina was careful to help me out. I leaned back and smiled, hoping this could last forever. We were back in the choir room before I knew it.

"I think that's amazing, Artie," she said, wheeling me to Schue's office where the old wheelchairs were still sitting. "I'm sure these old chairs are a pain. Well, don't worry, I'll help you out. We'll get this protest the attention it deserves."

I looked up at her curiously. She was acting like Rachel used to act around Finn. I knew Tina had a flair for drama, but I'd never seen her so intense. I wrinkled my eyebrows, but smiled at her as she helped me transfer into the old chair. I really missed this sweet side of her.

"Tina?" I looked up at her again, hoping to apologize... but she wasn't there.

I was sitting in the dark choir room's office in that old wheelchair. I had an idea of what happened and glanced around curiously. Thankfully my own wheelchair was sitting right there; I didn't look forward to rolling through school in a rusty old piece of metal. A wheelchair protest! I can't believe she'd ever taken me seriously. I transferred back to my own chair and rolled out into the school. It was dark and deserted; all the after school activities must be over by now. Back in 2010, we had been practicing for Sectionals way past this time. I rolled down the hall curiously, heading for the auditorium. It was dark, empty and locked.

I turned around with a sigh and looked up. My eyes went wide with a gasp. Standing there was the strangest thing I'd ever seen. "Artie," she said curiously. "What are you doing here?"

I just blinked up at Tina. She looked amazing, to be honest. She must be about 30, I thought. She was wearing a tailored jacket and a nice skirt; her hair was pulled back, clean of her usual streaks. Her smile was friendly and I vaguely wondered what our relationship was. I wondered if I was also 30. I looked down at myself; with a sports coat and striped tie, I looked like a teacher. Wait, was she a teacher too? "Oh, hey, Tina," I stammered, trying to come up with some excuse. "I was just checking out the old stamping ground. What are you doing here?"

"Yeah, we had some crazy times in there. And you know," she laughed lightly. "I'm doing the SAT Prep class. You ready?"

I wrinkled my eyebrows, but she quickly ushered to the door. I hesitated, I didn't really wanna leave the old chair in the school unattended. But Tina looked so good, so friendly, I couldn't say no. I smiled up at her... my wife? "Oh, OK, yeah."

She led the way to the front doors and I rolled after her. The ramps that we paid for all those years ago were still there and I couldn't help chuckling as I sped down the ramp. I felt great, I looked up at Tina waiting for me at the bottom. She nodded and turned towards the only car left in the parking lot. I rolled up to the passenger's seat and opened the door. Tina helped me transfer over and stowed my chair in the trunk. She took the wheel and started heading towards a nice part of town. She glanced at me briefly, "So how was class today?"

Oh no. What was I teaching? Keep it brief, Artie. Maybe you can get away with this. "Oh yeah, it was fine. You know, the usual."

"That's good. Matt didn't give you too much grief?"

"Oh, no, he was fine," I smiled a little hesitantly. Who the heck was Matt?

"Great. He's been giving you grief ever since he realized you used to be Mr. Schue's student."

I laughed lightly, realizing that Matt must be Mr. Schuester's son. That was interesting; so him and Miss Pillsbury must have worked things out after all. I couldn't help smiling at the prospect of a baby in the near future, maybe while we were still in school. "How about you? How were the kids?" I finally asked.

Tina smiled a little, "You know, the usual. It's pretty quiet in the library."

"Yeah, definitely..." Tina was the librarian? Somehow, this didn't surprise me much at all.

Tina pulled up to a large apartment building. I glanced up at the modern, accessible building and waited for her to pull over and park. She just glanced up at me. "Well, here you are, Artie. It's been nice seeing you. I feel like we don't do this enough."

"Yeah," I tried to smile as I pulled open the car door. As I waited for her to pull my wheelchair from the trunk, I wondered what was going on. I lived here... and she didn't. So we were just friends. Or maybe a bit more. I decided to risk it as she came up to me with my chair. "So, you're going home?"

"Yeah, of course. Gotta get supper started."

"Maybe I could join you." I tried to be smooth despite my nerves.

"I don't think that's a very good idea, Artie. I know you and Mike are friends and all, but it's still hard for me, you know."

Crap. She was living with Mike. "Oh, yeah. Forget I even asked," I smiled and quickly moved over to my wheelchair. I smiled up at her. "Well, thanks for the lift."

"Good night, Artie." She set her hand on my shoulder awkwardly, like she wasn't sure what to do.

"Good night," I offered and turned to leave. I pushed off a bit and waited till I heard her car pull away. I turned back and stared at her car, thinking of all I'd lost.

As soon as Tina was gone, I started wheeling down the sidewalk back towards school. I had to get out of this... whatever year it was. I could just imagine my life, Brit surely would have moved on to better pastures. I would try to be happy teaching high school kids (and what made me ever think that was a good idea anyway), but really, I was just lonely. I figured the school was a good 2 miles from the apartment building. It would be good exercise at least.

I pushed on through the dark streets of Lima, alone and uncharacteristically cold. I was in for the long haul, and finally made it back to the school, my arms aching.

Sighing, I pulled open the double doors to the school. Thankfully, the janitor must have been slacking and the doors were still unlocked. I found this a bit strange; it was after 6PM by now. I realized I was starving. I hadn't eaten anything since pizza at lunch and I had been in 3 different time periods during that time. It was ridiculous. I just wanted to get back to that old wheelchair and transport myself back to 2010, back to where I belonged. At least when I was there, the club needed me for Sectionals. Puck needed me to be able to pass Math. Brit and I were doing OK, all things considered. I pushed through the abandoned hallways of the school building, feeling more than a bit creeped out, It felt so different now and I wondered what could have changed in the 15 years or so since I had been a student here. I was a teacher now, that was certainly different. And Tina! She was a librarian and married to Mike. I almost smiled at the irony; how very stereotypical of her, not really like her at all to be honest. She seemed to like breaking stereotypes, to be anything than what was expected of her. I guess we all did, in a way.

I passed the trophy case and looked up curiously. There were more trophies now, of course and it looked like Sue's cheerleading trophies must have been moved to their own case or something. They surely weren't on display in the main case. I looked among the shining artifacts until I recognized a familiar one. Sure enough, it was from Sectionals last year, our only win this far. To be honest, I wasn't so sure we could succeed at Sectionals this year. We had lost one of best singers, Kurt, to the enemy and Finn and Rachel seemed to be on shaky ground lately. Sure, I could probably bust out something with Tina or Mercedes, but who was I kidding? No one wanted to see the wheelchair kid sing the solos? My songs were reserved for glee club... and my own imagination.

To my satisfaction, there were several more trophies next to the Sectionals '09 one now. A few more Sectional victories... and Regionals and the biggest one of all, Nationals of '12! This was amazing, I thought. I would be there to witness the glee club taking Nationals, something that they hadn't done in almost 20 years. I looked at the trophy, it was really amazing. The base listed all of our names and I smiled, reading the list. Arthur Abrams, Rachel Berry, Michael Chang, Sam Evans, Quinn Febray, Finn Hudson, Kurt Hummel, Mercedes Jones, Santana Lopez, Brittany Pierce, Noah Puckerman... wait, Tina was missing? She hadn't been in Nationals with us?

I wheeled on towards the choir room, but now my pace was much slower. I had to admit, I was curious as to why Tina hadn't been on that trophy. Had she been injured or sick? Something told me she wouldn't just drop out for no reason. I pulled into the choir room and stared at the old wheelchair for a minute. I couldn't really go back without figuring this out, could I? But on the other hand, Tina probably wouldn't even answer me; it would be a really weird topic to just bring up out of nowhere. Why did it really matter? This wasn't the future I wanted. She was married to Mike and I lived in a huge apartment building and I was a teacher. Ew.

I pulled myself over to the old chair, hoping that this time it would all turn out all right. I don't know if I could handle ending up in prehistoric times or something. I closed my eyes tight for a minute...

"Hey, Artie," a familiar voice called from the next room. I opened my eyes hopefully; I was still in the choir room's office. Puck shouted at me, "We're all looking for you."

I quickly got back into my own wheelchair and pulled out of the office and into our rehearsal room. Puck stood there, his arms crossed, but a sly smile swept across his face. "Where'd you go off to, bro? We've been waiting for you to come back so we could keep practicing. Sectionals are in a few days and we aren't ready."

I stared up at him. No matter what he said, he really cared about glee club. Now if only he would care about school as much. "Are you guys crazy? It's after 6. I'm starving."

"Got that covered. Mr. Schue ordered delivery from Breadstix for everybody. It should be getting here soon."

"Oh, great," I nodded, rolling next to him as we headed for the auditorium. It was so nice to see everybody up on stage, looking like themselves. I rolled down the ramp towards the stage and Finn and the guys came to help me up the stairs. I really should have just gone around to the back, but this was just so much faster. Once we were all up on stage, I looked around at everybody. Rachel took Finn's hand, Quinn was back in her cheerleader's outfit and smiling at Sam, everything seemed like 2010. Tina was staring at Mike lovingly... yep, it was back to old times again.

Mr. Schue opened his mouth to say something, but the doors burst open. A delivery boy held up a few bags of food and everybody cheered. The guys all jumped off the stage and went to grab the bags while the rest of us stood and laughed. I flashed a friendly smile at Mike as I rolled up to Tina carefully. "Hey girl," I said softly.

"Artie, you're such a jerk!" She rolled her eyes.

"About that..."

"No, it's too late to appologize. You act like you're all that and you just feel like you have to put me down, even when I try to be nice to you. You continue to objectify me, and all the other girls in this club, even though you're not even going out with me! You just make rude comments about my clothes way too often. I can wear whatever the heck I want, thank you. I can't even count the amount of times you just rip into girls like you own them or something. I bet you think you can get away with it too." She suddenly flinched, like she'd probably said too much. I just shrugged; it wasn't the first time someone accused me of acting more innocent than I was. She shook her head and narrowed her eyes. "I'm sorry, Artie. I'm not breaking up with Mike."

"Oh," I said lamely. Now suddenly everything made sense. The first time this happened, I'd probably been upset and rolled away, like I did way too often. She must have meant what she said, that's why she went ahead and married Mike. And knowing me, I had probably tried to go after her when Brit dumped me (and who didn't see that one coming), to the point where she'd dropped out of Nationals over it. Well, I wasn't gonna let any of that happen.

I stood my ground.

"This conversation is over," Mike took a step forward to protect Tina. He wasn't exactly threatening me; just telling me to back off.

"I don't wanna invade your ground, Mike. She's your girlfriend. I just want a chance to stay what's on my mind." I looked up for his approval and thankfully, he nodded at me. He headed for the other guys to help them unpack the food.

"Artie," Tina crossed her arms, clearly not ok with this idea.

"Tina, won't you just listen?"

"Fine."

Don't blow it again, Abrams. "Look, I know I haven't been the nicest person around lately and you're right, I don't really have a good excuse. All I can really offer you is an apology and I know that might not be enough, but I promise to change. I want to try to change. I-" I paused, trying not to tell her the whole story. It would just complicate things. "I've realized how much I've lost."

To my surprise, Tina shifted her gaze to my lap self-consciously. I rushed to continue, "No, I don't mean that, Tee. I mean you. I was really rude and I guess just sort of clueless. I saw Puck and Karofsky and all the jocks really treating girls like that and girls seemed to like it. If they could be all tough, why couldn't I?" I chuckled. "Who was I kidding? It probably just looked pathetic. Anyway, I realized that's not how you treat girls. I mean, look at Mike. He's the sweetest guy ever and he deserves you. He might end up with you for good... and that's OK," I swallowed my pride. "I just want you to know I really miss you. I miss how much you really care about everything and everybody. I shouldn't be so insensitive. Oh, and Tina, I really do miss being friends with you. I guess I let my pride get the better of me sometimes."

Tina laughed lightly. "You can say that again,"

"Sometimes I let my pride get the better of me?"

"Oh Artie. I've missed you too." She just smiled and took off in search of Mike.

It was a start. At least Tina and I were speaking again. I never went in search of that rusty old wheelchair again.

* * *

A/N: Thanks for reading. :) I'm really not sure about this one and I don't really like the ending, lol. Let me know what you guys think.


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